Outrun
by wintercreek
Summary: Willow copes with life without Tara. Comes first chronologically in the wintercreek universe.
1. Outrun

**Disclaimer: **I don't own them.  I never will.  Joss doesn't own Willow's car.

**Spoilers:** Everything through season 6 is fair game.  I'm ignoring spoilers for season 7.

**Dedication:** For Olivia.

*************

She didn't want the money.

It didn't seem right.  Taking it was too much like profiting from Tara's death.  Refusing to take it was out of the question.  Willow knew that Tara would not have wanted her family to inherit anything.

So Willow took it.  Tara's possessions, investments, life insurance payments.  An unexpected death at only 21 meant rather a large pay off from the insurance company, as it turned out.  Apparently their policies hadn't taken the Hellmouth into account.  The investments were sizable, consisting mostly of stocks gifted to Tara by an old maiden aunt.  A touch of foresight ran in the family, evidently.

The possessions were too much.  Everything was so _Tara_.  Willow couldn't bear to go through Tara's things, not yet.  Nor could she bear for strangers' hands to touch them.  So all that there was left to do was call the Scoobies and ask them to fold the beloved clothes, wrap the treasured knick-knacks, box everything away.  It only took a little of the insurance money to rent a storage space, and then another.  Willow's things hunkered in the little concrete-floored shed, neighbors to Tara's material remains.

What to do with the money was not so easy.  Oh, some things were obvious.  A large portion went to Anya, for the repair of the Magic Box.  Another chunk to Xander, for a new car.  To Buffy: the rent money that should have been hers all along.  To Giles: enough to cover the hospital bills and buy a plane ticket back to England.  Dawn was harder; there was no convenient bill to pay off.  Finally Willow settled on a rose bush, planted in the Summers' backyard.  A living memorial to Tara, to what she had been to the Summers girls and Dawn especially.

At last, Willow was left with only herself.  Willow's debt to Willow was paid with a car, one that Tara would have chosen for them.  It was a little four-door wagon, colored the peaceful shade of indigo that would always remind Willow of Tara's aura.  The hatchback was the most important part.  Every time the two women had discussed getting a car, Tara had mentioned the importance of having that fifth upward-opening door.  "It's like a canopy.  It's your very own awning, wherever you go.  Kind of like a street corner café in the back of your car."

Smiling sadly at the memory, Willow lifted her bags into the back of the car.  With everything else stored away, she had only two suitcases to worry about.  All the loose ends were neatly tied up: leave of absence from college, financial debts paid, emotional excuses made.  Xander didn't want her to do this, didn't think that she should be on her own.  Willow knew that she _had_ to be on her own.  "Xander, please.  I need to do this.  I need to go someplace new.  Every time I look at _anything_ here, I see it with Tara.  Maybe somewhere else I can look at the moon and not feel her absence beside me.  Maybe I can teach myself to see the beauty around me again.  I'll come back when I can, I promise."

There was only one thing left to do.  Outrun the pain.


	2. Undertow

**Disclaimer:** The usual.  I'm not Joss.  The song "Full of Grace" belongs to Sarah McLachlan, and appeared on B:tVS in "Becoming, Part 2".

**Spoilers:** Through S6.  Ignoring S7 spoilers.

**Dedication:** For Katie.

**A/N:** Sequel of sorts to Outrun.  Italic text denotes thought or song lyrics.

************

Willow found that she could no longer remember the name of the current town.  She'd driven north, up the coast and through a succession of tiny port towns.  They all began to look the same after a while.

Standing on any of a hundred bridges, looking out over another nameless bay, Willow's thoughts turned again to Tara.  The sun was sinking into the ocean and the hills around the harbor were dotted with tiny porch lights.  Here and there, a window spilled a puddle of light on the slope.  _Tara and I could have been happy here._  Willow's thought came unbidden and unwanted, as it always did.  The truth was that they could have been happy anywhere.

Off to her left, Willow saw the dock lights come on, outlining the floating wooden paths to the many boats moored there.  The gentle rise and fall of the water left the boats bobbing slightly, their signal lights moving so subtly that one had to watch for the motion.  Willow was adept by this time at tracking the discrete shifts.  It was hypnotic.  At some point during the long evening, the rhythm of the waves became a beat.

When Buffy had to kill Angel, so many years ago, she'd later told Willow about a song that came to her.  The two women didn't talk much about that time of their lives, but some time during their freshman year of college a song had come on the radio and Buffy had inexplicably started to cry.  "Wow.  If you dislike Sarah McLachlan that much, all you had to do was ask.  I would have changed the station."  Willow tried gently to joke Buffy out of her sudden grief.

"No, Will, it's ok.  It's just . . . just that I heard this song, in my head, after I had to . . . you know.  Save the world and all that.  When I . . . killed . . ." Buffy trailed off.

"Oh."

"Yeah.  I just heard this, over and over in my head.  That whole time on the bus."

They'd never spoken of it again.

_the__ winter here's cold, and bitter  
it's chilled us to the bone_

The words wound their way through Willow's head now, and the tears began to slip slowly from her eyes for what seemed to be the millionth time.  _Stop it!_  Willow hit the concrete guard rail of the bridge.

_we__ haven't seen the sun for weeks  
too long too far from home_

Cars roared by behind her, local people on their way home.  Returning to their places of comfort and love.

_I feel just like I'm sinking  
and I claw for solid ground  
I'm pulled down by the undertow  
I never thought I could feel so low  
oh darkness I feel like letting go_

Not for the first time, Willow considered jumping off the bridge.  Or falling backwards into the traffic.  But she couldn't.  _Just because I want my world to end, doesn't mean that I have the right to end someone else's.  I know what it is to kill.  These people don't need my death on their consciences.  Not even as an accident._

_if all of the strength and all of the courage  
come and lift me from this place  
I know I could love you much better than this  
full of grace  
full of grace  
my love_

_Oh __Tara__.  I'm so sorry.  Buffy had to kill her love to stop the world from ending.  I tried to end the world because someone killed you.  What kind of memorial for you is that?_

_so__ it's better this way, I said  
having seen this place before_

Running was helpful, cathartic in a way.  In every nameless town, Willow's grief was a little different.  Every faceless person that she passed was another person who wouldn't make some well-intentioned comment and stir up her pain.

_where__ everything we said and did  
hurts us all the more_

In that respect, Sunnydale had been unbearable.  _No one here sees me as the woman who tragically lost her lover.  No one here sees me as the witch who tried to end the world._

_its just that we stayed, too long  
in the same old sickly skin  
I'm pulled down by the undertow  
I never thought I could feel so low  
oh darkness I feel like letting go_

_I should have left Sunnydale.  Gone East for college.  Then none of this would have happened.  Coulda shoulda woulda.  None of that helps._

_if all of the strength  
and all of the courage  
come and lift me from this place  
I know I could love you much better than this  
full of grace  
full of grace  
my love_

At least the ocean wouldn't notice a little more salt._  
  
_


	3. Fireborn

**Title: Fireborn**

**Author: wintercreek**

**Disclaimer: Actually, the only thing I don't own in this is Willow.  Well, and the memory of Tara.  (*sniff*)  And Carl Sandburg.  Hmm.**

**Spoilers: Through Season 6.**

**Dedication: To anyone who's ever walked through a fire, of any kind.**

**A/N: Third chapter of Outrun, as you've no doubt figured out.  Thanks for the reviews (All 3 of you).  Willow continues to run.**

***********

This town was different.  Harder to fool.  Willow hadn't yet figured out why, but the people here didn't see her as just another stranger passing through.  Their looks were knowing, suggesting an insight that she couldn't grasp.  It made her uneasy.

The cemetery was large.  Many of the headstones were new.  That was the first thing that stood out.  That, and all the flowers.  A bouquet on every grave, it seemed.  Willow had taken to visiting the cemeteries in the towns she rolled through, walking through them only by day.  She wasn't here to fight vampires, only to acquaint herself with the grief of others.  It was a way of training herself in preparation for her return to Sunnydale.  A long warm up before her eventual visit to Tara's grave.  So she'd made it a habit to buy some flowers and leave them on untended graves.

Willow hadn't seen any untended graves yet.  Row upon row.  She'd had to walk clear to the back of the cemetery to find lonely graves with no flowers.  Those were the graves over fifty years old.  Out of curiosity, Willow began checking the dates as she headed back to the gate of the cemetery.

A huge number of the graves, perhaps two-thirds of the well-tended ones, were from within the past year.

Many of those were children.

Willow sank down where she was, dumbstruck.  This outweighed everything.

~_W~_

The sun had been high overhead when she'd arrived in this particular town, and it was now nearing the midway point of its descent.  _Around __five o'clock__, then, a detached part of her noted._

"Are you alright there, hun?"  The voice was young, but the hand that reached out to touch Willow's shoulder was gnarled.

"I ... it's ... I'm overwhelmed."

"Yeah, I understand.  Took us a while to get over the shock.  Not 'over', I guess, but past."

"What ... what happened?  If you don't mind my asking."  Willow looked up at the woman, realizing as she did that the gnarling was not a result of age but rather burn scarring that made its way up the woman's arm.

"Come here.  The bench over there will be more comfortable."

Willow followed mutely, a part of her noting with silent horror the extent of the scarring on this woman's body.  Summer clothing of shorts and a spaghetti-strap tank top left none of the woman's limbs to the imagination.  Her right leg—_Same side as the scarred arm—was patterned with the aftermath of flames as well, and a few of the toes on the woman's right foot seemed melted together._

They'd reached the bench, but Willow was still taking in the burn marks.  She looked up to find the woman watching Willow examine her, a wry look on her face.  "Oh!  I'm so sorry!  I didn't mean to stare . . . ." Willow gasped, flushing a bright red.  She reached up to cover her hot face with her hands, only to be reminded of the woman's burns again.

"It's alright.  Look all you want.  I'm used to it."

Bashful, Willow couldn't bring herself to lift her gaze back to the woman's face.  She sat on the bench instead, arranging her skirts until the embarrassment passed.

"'s'alright, hun.  Here, I'm Candace."  Candace extended a hand.

"W-willow."  _Oh, that awful stutter!  Willow hadn't stuttered since before she'd met Tara.  As expected, even that vague thought of her lost love brought a twinge of pain._

"I see you've lost someone recently."

"How did you know?"

"You have that look to you.  A little haunted still.  A little bit of pain in the back of your eyes.  I'd bet there's more, when a stranger's not looking on."

"Yes."  That syllable was all Willow could muster.

"I understand.  Everyone here does."  And with that, Candace began to pour out her story.  About the fire, started by a carelessly thrown cigarette butt, that eventually raged through the children's ward of the hospital.  About Candace's dedication to her patients, her pride in her career as a pediatric nurse.  About the mad dash into the smoky, hot room, again and again, pulling out as many kids as she could.  About the terror of the ceiling collapsing in on her, pinning her right side.  About the despair when the rescue workers pulled her out, but couldn't reach the children further into the room.  "At least they were unconscious from smoke inhalation.  At least, that's what we hope."  About the children they'd pulled out, only to watch them slowly fade away.  And about the rest of the town, the other places the inferno had reached.  Not a single family was left intact.

Willow read deeper into Candace's eyes and identified with the survivor's guilt she saw there.  That endless pain inside that seemed like it would never stop asking, _Why not me?_

The two women sat in silence for a moment.  Candace turned away, and then turned back again.  "Do you know what the ironic part is?"  
Willow shook her head.

"'Candace' means 'fire white.'  You know, like when people talk about something burning white-hot?"

Willow nodded this time, still incapable of speech.

"A lot of folks think that white-hot is about as hot as you can get.  They're wrong.  The very hottest part of a flame is blue.  Like the innermost part of a candle flame."

"Or the flame from a Bunsen burner.  If you turn it just right, it's all blue," Willow put forth hesitantly.

"Exactly!  So maybe you'll understand this, too.  I'm guessing that you've walked through your own fires recently—maybe metaphorical fires, but those can still be just as hot and just as scarring.  This guy, Carl Sandburg, said this thing: 'Only the fireborn understand blue.'  You know?"

Willow nodded.  She did.

"No use in explaining it to those who haven't been there.  No matter how many times they look at a Bunsen burner, they'll never believe that blue is the most frightening color.  And you may not ever understand blue either, but I'll wager that there's something ordinary that will never be ordinary for you again.  Only the other fireborn will see it."

"I ... thank you."

"Courage, hun.  You'll make it."  Candace stood, gave Willow's shoulder a final squeeze, and walked away.


End file.
